More Garden...

...And A Sad State Of Confusion

The garden this year has been a sort of controlled "Let's see what happend when I do this!" Here are the main contenders:

Somdewhere, there is a picture of two bags of this stuff, gutted open, and planted. I decided that eight openings on the ground was easier.

Interestingly, the lettuce leaves here are darker than the ones that took in the garden bed.

Tomatoes. I had given up on ever growing decent tomatoes; I gather there's something in the soil that races up the vine to see how many fruit it can kill before they are ready to be picked. So, when a  random plant sprouted in the corner of the garden bed, I thought "OK, let's see what happens."

There is a clutch of seven tomatoes hiding in the middle of the bush. Plus six or more green ones of various sizes.  Not to mention the four I have sitting in the kitchen.

They are all roughly the size you see me holding here (pretty close to actual scale!):

One woud think that, in the middle of small garden in a small town in Pennsyltucky (or Pretzelvania, if you prefer), we would be immune from gender self-identification type issues. But, no...

It seems that Basil has decided to identify as a strawberry.

Even more discouraging, one of the Romaine offspring has chosen to identify as a common weed, and go sprout in a crack in the sidewalk.

There's no talking sense to either of them.

I fear that neither will grow to be happy.

Friday Garden...

...Drunk Walk.  (Not really, just shots as they come from the camera, taken in no particular order.)

This late in the season, and there are two blueberry buds! 

Flowering bud!

A clutch(?) of ripening 'maters. Reddest one is about baseball size!

Volunteer Romaine! These were from seeds produced buy a plant I purchased at the store.

        Strawberries. 

        About a week and 1/2 ago, I pulled everything, broke up the plants, and re-planted them.  

        The deadlooking ones mostly have green shoots, so the bed will be bangin' next year!

Peppers.  These are the ones that came (for free!) in my order from a nursery in

            New Mexico.  The ones I intentionally purchased did about as well - I have one 

            immature plant in a pot. It will come in when it gets cold, too.

Potted Basil.

Lower pot, Rosemary, which will be re-potted and brought in for the winter.

More strawberries, in a mini-Mexican pot. Plus Oregano!! 

The heavy rains and the weight of the tomatoes toppled the cage, but didn't uproot the plant.

Still rooted!

Horticultural notes:  The peppers sprouted quite well in a mini-hothouse I use. It consistes of water-saturated planting media in a square aluminun cake pan with a plastic lid ('bake and carry'). Pan with lid sits on a warming pad, and water condenses on the plastic lid.  Tapping the lid a couple of times creates 'rain', and the seeds stay hydrated!

Doc Deb and I discussed the interesting growth process pf these peculiar peppers. They sprout, and in about two weeks, hit about 4 inches tall. Then, they 'stall'.  I don't know if they're concentrating on root development (my hunch), but they stay the same height for about a month. Then, blammo, they get about 18 inches tall, and peppers sprout.

More on the peppers soon! (I'm doing a test quiche using them rather than Green Ortegas!)

Friday Garden, Before And After

About a month and a half ago, I started to resurrect the garden from a year's worth of neglect. The oldest part of the oldest bed finally gave out - it has rotted at the joints. I'm salvaging what I can, and re-arranging things a bit.

Remains of the oldest bed. Top half is all the can be re-used as-is.

The new potato bed, with potato sprouts

I'm experimenting with a new potato growing technique. I was told by one of the guys at the auction to keep burying the sprouts as they come up, which causes them to grow more potatoes. I've doubled the height of this bed, and will add one more layer. This makes use of another bed that started to rot.

10 Gallon Potato Bag

I'm also experimenting with the bag o' taters! Same principle, just in a canvas bag. The bag has a door flap that you can use to 'pick' potatoes without pulling up the parent plant.

Romaine lettuce and onions

I pulled up the oregano, replaced it with red and green romaine, and tidied up the onions.

Below, the two blackberry sticks:

 
Progress below the fold!

Friday Garden, With Impending Doom

Rain and sun have done wonders for the garden. Doom after the fold.

Establishing shot:

Strawberries:

Potatoes and peppers:

Potatoes and onions and garlic:

Blackberries:

Oregano:

Potatoes:

Potato flower:

Roses:

"Wildflowers":

Blackberry, again:

Impending Doom:

Today's Friday Garden

As you may (or may not) have noticed, it's been quite a while since I talked gardening. So, here we are.

Being a SoCal boy, and seeing the strawberry plants pulled up every year before the fields were re-planted, I assumed (yeah, I know), that strawberries couldn't winter, especially here where there is Real Winter. Silly me. The strawberries I 'rescued' by potting and taking inside died off pretty quickly. The ones I left in the bed did quite well.

I weeded and did a little re-arranging.  Now that I know they will winter, this is the official strawberry patch:

The blackberry also wintered well. This is the first year it hasn't started over from just a stick:

I put the random small potatoes from last year in mom's old collander, by the sink. I wound up with a collander full of sprouting potatoes, which have been strewn through several of the beds:

The actual potato bed...,

...and half of the pepper bed.

The garlic/onion bed seems to be doing well, along with a few potatoes, too:

Not to forget the kitchen bed, Oregano, garlic and onions:

And, random flowers:

The rose stick -

I believe the horticultural name for these guys is "weeds", but they're pretty ones -

Lastly, the contribution from the local tree rodentia - sunflowers (They didn't plant them quite so neatly, tho...) -

The theme for this year's garden is "Leftovers". The strawberries, blackberry, and potatoes are left over from last year, as are the oregano and all of the onions and garlic. In addition, I am attempting to sprout seeds, which were either given to me last year, or came from produce I grew.  I am incubating Thai Hots, Basil, lettuce, Red Bells, Honeydew, Mystery Melon (maybe Cantaloupe, maybe not), and Mystery Bells (color unknown).

The only new addition are the Sunflowers, thanks to the squirrels.

Photo Dump

Missy found the box The MoP used to ship spices to me as payment for working on her web site. 

Disassembly of the monitor w/ the dead power supply. It apparently eats capacitors, so I dusted off my electronic soldering skillz.

The instructional video

Concurrent disassembly.

It's back together and working fine.

Potato harvest:

Min 'taters

More-or-less regular size 'taters.

How many drivers does it take to jump start this truck?

Looks like three, plus the driver.

The carpet in the living area desperately needed cleaning. Here, drying...

Front door & closet trim paint finished!  Transom window re-installed!!

Griffin on his spot on the (missing) carpet.

Caturday pic:

No. I got this...